Content Globalisation
Jinfo Blog

10th February 2010

By Nancy Davis Kho

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Earlier this week I attended the SDL Innovate conference in Santa Clara, CA to learn more about the field of content globalisation and localisation. The market for outsourced language services is big business; according to GALA, the Globalization and Localization Association (http://www.gala-global.org/), analysts predict that the market will reach US$22.5 billion by 2012, representing a compound annual growth rate of 10.6 percent over the next five years. SDL (http://www.sdl.com) is a leader in the global information management market, offering a comprehensive suite of services to enterprise 'to help companies ensure that their message (and hence their brand) is delivered consistently across the world in any language'. One of the stats I found most compelling in the presentation came from Mark Lancaster, SDL chairman and CEO, who quoted a study by Common Sense Advisory showing that only 15% of purchasers are 'very comfortable' buying in non-native language. At the same time, people rely more and more on online information to support purchase decisions - from company web sites to social networks to peer reviews. Producing print collateral in a few different language flavours just doesn't cut it; companies have to think about how their entire web presence can be made consistent and welcoming, regardless of language preference. In this digitally-connected economy, it's nigh on impossible for a company to believe that they don't have customers (or potential customers) for whom English is not the first language. And of course as workforces become more global, internal systems would benefit from the same language flexibility. There was a really interesting thread through the discussion about using crowd-sourced translations (in combination with extensive quality control) to speed the translation process. As someone whose earliest foray into the Information Industry was as an international product manager championing the idea of translated software interfaces, this is a subject close to my heart. It got me thinking about vendors who using multiple language support - in software, in content, in marketing efforts - strategically. And of course localisation goes far beyond words: it includes images, colors, gestures… I'd love to hear from you about companies who you think are doing well at that challenge, and those whose products you'd buy - if only they offered them in localised versions.

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